Younes Megri

Younès Mégri (Arabic: يونس ميكري; born November 15, 1951, in Oujda, Morocco) is a Moroccan singer and actor. Younes Megri started singing and playing guitar at a very young age and came from a family of artists. His father played the lute and practiced painting, his mother sang in a religious music band, his brothers played the guitar, and his sister was a singer. In 1960, the family moved to Rabat. He studied music at the Moroccan National Conservatory of Music in Rabat, as well as at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. He became part of Les Frères Mégri (the Megri Brothers) singing group, made up of the three brothers, Hassan, Mahmoud and Younès Mégri, and their sister Jalila Mégri. Younès was their youngest member. In 1974, Les Frères Mégri released the album Younes et Mahmoud (Arabic: يونس و محمود مكري) that was a collaboration between the brothers Younès and Mahmoud. The second album, released the same year, was entitled Younes, Hassan, Mahmoud (Arabic: يونس حسن محمود) was a collaboration between all three brothers. As a solo artist, he had an even bigger career performing throughout the Maghreb countries and in many European capitals, achieving international success particularly in France. His biggest success was the song "Lili Twili," which was sampled by the German band Boney M. in their song "Children of Paradise." He received a Golden Record for this song, and performed at the Olympia in 1985 during his solo career. During the 1990s, he also began to compose film music for Moroccan and international films, most notably Gabriel Axel's "Leïla" and "8MM" for which he worked with Michael Dana as a consultant. After a brief role in 1980, he had a prosperous film career starting in the 1990s, especially after the Moroccan casting director Ahmed Boulane offered him roles for Moroccan and international films, with Boulane's first feature film Ali, Rabiaa et les Autres in 2000, shooting Younès Mégri to stardom as a leading actor in Moroccan films. Mégri also played in many Moroccan television serials.